A Texas police officer who witnessed the Sandra Bland arrest says he has evidence of wrongdoing in the racially charged case, but top county officials threatened him, saying he would lose his job if he didn't stay mum.
The Prairie View police officer Michael Kelley told
the Huffington Post he saw bruises on Bland’s forehead at the time of her July 2015 arrest and says he overheard the arresting officer, state trooper Brian Encinia, call his superviser to mull over what charges the woman should face.
Kelley says those details were omitted from the official report.
“My opinion is that he (Encinia) messed up,” Kelly told HuffPost. “He did not have probable cause to detain her after he pulled her out of the car.”
Kelley, who responded to the scene of the arrest, says a county prosecutor warned him against testifying before a grand jury or speaking with an attorney for the Bland family.
“He told me it wouldn’t be good for my career,” Kelley said.
Prosecutors deny Kelley’s claims and blasted the officer for trying to “cash in on media attention” and “divert attention” away from Kelley's indictment earlier this year for having used a stun gun on a black City Council member.
“His job was never threatened by me or my staff, and I barely knew who he was before he was indicted,” Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis said in a statement on Tuesday
Bland was arrested in July 2015 by Encinia for failure to signal when changing lanes and died three days later inside a Waller County jail cell. Her death was ruled a suicide and was a major galvanizing force for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Police video of the arrest revealed a tense confrontation between Encinia and Bland, including that the officer reached into Bland’s car in an attempt to drag her out and threatened her with a Taser gun.
“Get out of the car!” Encinia can be heard yelling. “I will light you up! Get out!”
Encinia calls for backup after the two get into a brief altercation. Kelly was one of the first officers to respond to the scene and says he saw that Bland was visibly roughed up and that he heard Encinia express uncertainty over how to charge her.
Encinia was captured on audio going through possible charges for Bland, while she was handcuffed and sitting in the back of his squad car.
“I don’t know what I’m going to charge her with yet,” Encinia is heard saying over the phone to a superviser, according to
the Wall Street Journal.
“I kind of lean toward assault versus resist because I mean, technically, she’s under arrest when a traffic stop is initiated, as a lawful stop,” Encinia says.
The report doesn’t include mention of the conversation, but shows Bland was ultimately charged with assault on a public servant.
Encinia was still indicted for perjury and lost his job as a state trooper for alleged false statements about the arrest.
The accusations come just days after a
jailer admitted under oath to falsifying jail logs to make it seem as though he had checked on Bland within an hour before her death. He made the admission during a deposition for the Bland family’s federal lawsuit against the county.
The Waller County attorney’s officer requested a gag order of court proceedings on the case following the revelation,
the Houston Chronicle reported.
Bland's mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this week, alongside other mothers, whose sons or daughters died while in police custody.
they keep getting away with it!!!